Healthcare financing continues to be a significant problem in the United States. Healthcare costs are trending considerably above that of inflation. In 2002, healthcare spending in the United States increased 9.3 percent; the largest increase in 11 years. Healthcare spending in the United States increased an additional 7.8 percent in 2003, raising total healthcare spending to $1.7 trillion. According to a report issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, healthcare spending grew 5.7 percentage points faster than the overall United States economy in 2002, marking the fourth consecutive year in which the rate of healthcare spending surpassed growth in the rest of the United States economy.
As a result, employers and other providers of healthcare plans, as well as government officials and agencies, continue to seek ways to make patients more educated and careful consumers of healthcare. One recent innovation in this regard is consumer directed healthcare plans (CDHPs). However, it warrants repeating that virtually any measure designed to curb the skyrocketing healthcare costs will be highly reliant on patients, i.e., healthcare consumers, becoming more educated and value minded/results oriented consumers.
One important element needed to help healthcare consumers become more educated and value minded/results oriented is a mechanism whereby healthcare consumers can obtain information regarding the quality and/or historical performance of various healthcare providers, i.e., a healthcare provider ratings system and/or data source. However, the few currently available healthcare provider ratings systems and/or data sources are typically provided only through individual health plans, and/or third parties, who each use their own differing criteria for rating/evaluating healthcare providers and typically only provide information for healthcare providers in their respective plans or network. Consequently, there is no uniformity in these currently available healthcare provider ratings systems.
The lack of uniformity, or any type of cross over value, of healthcare provider ratings systems currently available has its roots in the fact that the healthcare “system” in the United States is, in reality, not a “system” at all. Rather, healthcare in the United States is a disconnected collection of large, medium and small medical businesses, healthcare providers and professionals, and large, medium and small healthcare provider and/or healthcare insurance provider organizations, along with third party groups that often have their own agendas.
As a result, to the average healthcare consumer, the currently available healthcare provider ratings systems are often viewed as being somewhat less than objective, at best, and often as deceptive, confusing and incredible time sinks that yield little in the way of useful results. Consequently, the currently available healthcare provider ratings systems do little to help, and arguably impede, efforts to create the more educated and value minded/results oriented healthcare consumers that are so critical to controlling healthcare spending in the United States.